


Being Here

by cheeky_geek_m0nkey



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeky_geek_m0nkey/pseuds/cheeky_geek_m0nkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Beca breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: A bechloe fic where they go through a divorce. Chloe wanted it after Beca missed a lot of important dates and was basically always working or touring. A moment where they're meeting with their lawyers in splitting up their possessions and Chloe sees Beca walk in, tired, eyebags, and just a defeated expression. Um. you go from there, and hopefully you think of a happy ending to this cause I cannot for the life of me think how this could end happily, and I thought of the request, again thanks

Beca, of course, was here for this. 

She’d missed Chloe’s birthday that year, and the year before, stuttering an excuse as she printed the plane tickets to her next gig. When Aubrey found out - both times - Chloe had to forcefully convince her friend not to take action. “You’re Chloe  _Beale_ ,” Aubrey huffed, stirring the straw in her cocktail, “Professional birthday girl. You live for this. And just because you put a ring on it doesn’t mean I can’t threaten that tiny human with the vocal-chord eating wolves.” 

And, though Chloe knew Beca wasn’t a romantic, Valentine’s day passed by with Chloe sleeping on the couch, waiting for a flight that was never delayed in the first place. 

It began slowly – one day here, another there, with always a few days in between to spend painting the side wall of their living room or decoding the Ikea instructions for their new dresser. On the days Chloe was alone, she felt like she had a piece of floss tied around her heart. The further Beca went, the harder the floss was tugged, until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Only, as the absences grew longer and longer - with spotty dance club cellphone signal and cheap hotel room wifi - the floss tugged less and less. Chloe didn’t exactly feel like she could breathe again, but she felt like she could exist within the suffocation. And it was that  _lack_ of pain that hurt the most. 

So when Chloe sat, tapping her toe against the floor, she only glanced at her watch twice. She started to learn almost two years ago that the third glance was frivolous. That if Beca was late, she wasn’t coming. And prolonging that hope by hazarding a third glance was only digging the metaphorical stake deeper. “She’s probably not –,” Chloe began, leaning over the lawyer’s desk, before she heard the door open and saw Beca peek in. 

And her first thought was _Beca, of course, was here for this_. 

Her second thought was  _And she’s still so fucking beautiful._ Because she was, and because memory had a tendency to fray the edges of truth, dulling the spark in Beca’s eyes or the soft pout of her lip. When Chloe was accustomed to seeing the face everyday, it still stalled her mind but it stopped sucking the wind from her after Beca’s first year with the Bellas. Without seeing her every day before she woke up in the morning or just as she hopped out of the shower at night, Chloe’s tolerance had shattered. She was completely affected by Beca, completely stunned, and it hurt more than words could say. 

“Um, hey,” Beca said, throwing out an awkward hand and passing it off as a wave. In one breath, Chloe was brought back to the younger woman who peered through the side of the stage curtains, a nervous and apologetic look on her face. She moved the same way as this woman did, a strange mixture of confidence and uncertainty that made people stand  _just_ far enough away. “I’m sorry I’m late.” 

There were infinite differences, however, between that younger woman and the one that stood before her, shifting her weight back and forth. The younger Beca spoke with a sharpness that was smooth and crisp and refreshing. The Beca now was letting her words slip out through cracks in her voice, pointed for optimal weaponization, sure, but ultimately dull. Younger Beca held onto a bounce to carry her through the anxiety of a room watching her, while the Beca now stood impossibly still. They wore the same makeup, even now, but the 'now' Beca’s face had thinned, digging hollow spaces along her cheekbones and pushing the eyeliner to appear harsher, darker. Her hair was shorter, though not extremely, and chopped haphazardly, as if Beca couldn't stand to go to a salon and decided instead to take matters into her own hands. There was a pull on either side of her mouth, that piece of floss around Chloe’s heart tugging her lips down into a focused, determined frown. Chloe thought, briefly, that the crease between her eyebrows was now permanent. 

While younger Beca - the one who peeked out of the curtain with an awkward hello and a pitiful wave - sat down so many years ago with the cup in her hand, sparks flying through the sound of her voice to jolt the entire room awake…The Beca that had peered into her lawyer’s office with an awkward hello and a pitiful wave was just standing in the corner of the room, completely still. Her hands weren’t moving to the beat that Beca had pulsing through her, and Chloe thought she felt it - that absence of rhythm. 

Her third thought was  _She looks tired._

And her fourth thought was  _She lost her music._

There was no arguing. Polite “okays” and conversational “I guesses” were passed between the two of them as the lawyer ran through their things. Chloe would’ve tried to stop staring at Beca, but she knew Beca wasn’t present enough to feel it. 

“I’m going to take this outside, copy it for you,” the lawyer said with a smile, nodding at both girls and heading out the room. For a few impossible moments, the clock on the wall managed to reach a level of volume previously unheard of. It filled the room, Chloe’s tapping toe joining it, along with her nails hitting the desk. She counted during it - a means of calming herself down. By the fourth set of four taps, Beca threw her head against the back of her chair. 

“For the love of God and all that is holy, can you please fucking stop that?” 

Chloe’s toe was caught in it’s upswing, and she lowered it quietly. Only, the silence threatened to close in again. She swallowed everything that crusted the edge of her mind, trying to put on a polite, curious, distanced face. “How’ve you been, Becs?”

Beca shifted, pulling her legs up and beneath her. She’d aged a million years and reversed twenty, and Chloe never would understand how she pulled that off. “Fine,” she said, though it was quiet, aimed at her thumbnail which was perking up with blood. 

“Yeah?” Chloe pressed, reaching out instinctively to put her hand on Beca’s. She expected the other girl to pull her hand back, and when she didn’t, Chloe started drawing incoherent letters on Beca’s palm. All the while, Beca chose to focus on her thumbnail and her shoes. 

“How are the shows?” 

Beca shrugged. “Fine.” 

“Becs,” Chloe said, scooted her chair forward more. It faced Beca’s now, saw the dryness in her eyes. The dullness. The shadow. Slowly, like she was feeding a rabid gorilla, she reached her hand to touch Beca’s cheek. There was flicker of light, but it went out quickly. She ran her thumb over the bags under Beca’s eyes, nearly feeling the indent. “You’re not fine.” 

“You’re not mine,” Beca said easily in response. Her eyes were running up and down the edge of the desk, and where there should have been fire or sadness in her voice, there was just blankness. 

Chloe put both hands on Beca’s cheeks, focusing her gaze finally on Chloe’s.

Chloe thought of the Beca from the past and the Beca from the present. She thought of the walls she broke down, and the force field she now couldn't pass through. She thought of the moment after winning Worlds or the second after Beca was dared to go cliff-diving with Chloe’s brothers. She thought of the light in her eyes, the spark, the dance that they played and the way music was always playing even when it wasn’t. She thought about who decided to press the mute button and why. 

She thought about how Beca even smelled different now, but beneath it was the inherent scent of her. And she wondered how much time it would take for Beca to taste like she used to, too.  

 “I need you to be here, Becs,” Chloe said, her voice no higher than a whisper. With hands still pressed against Beca’s face, she had the power to direct Beca’s eyes to her. There was a tear coming down her face, but she looked like she didn’t know it was there. “Please.” 

Chloe was crying - at least, she could feel herself crying - and she nearly smiled. It felt good. It felt like a good run, or laughing so hard you hurt. Because she was crying again. 

She picked up Beca’s single tear with her thumb, pressing the salt-water against the edge of Beca’s lip. 

“Please be here,” Chloe continued, because now that there was a funnel of air she felt like she could speak again. “I don’t know when I lost you or why but it was way before this,” she stopped to wave her hand over the lawyers desk, “It was way before all of this. And I was dumb enough to convince myself that you were still here at all. For any of it.” 

She didn’t say the words bitterly, instead pressing a little harder into the sides of Beca’s head, as if trying to physically instill the smaller woman with the fire she had before. With the Beca that Chloe knew and loved. 

Beca swallowed, and when she blinked, it was like she wiped away a fraction of the haze. After just one singular tear, she breathed in an unsettling, rattling breath. It made Chloe jump, it was so sudden, so loud, so massive and strangled. When she breathed it back out, she was sobbing - properly, properly sobbing. 

And Beca Mitchell didn’t cry. Romance movies, emotional television shows, friend break-ups and family drama…Chloe watched the smaller girl travel through all those realms without shedding more than a few well-behaved tears. This Beca was sobbing out sound - broken, strangled cries as she lurched forward to hold onto Chloe’s collar. Chloe wrapped herself around the smaller girl, feeling her again for the first time in forever. 

“I’m so sorry,” Beca repeated over and over again between sobs, “I can’t…I can’t.” 

“Breathe,” Chloe said, dramatizing her breath to instruct Beca, who followed shakily. “Breathe,” she repeated, doing the motion again and again until Beca’s cries became involuntary shivers. 

“Now just stay here with me,” Chloe said. She pressed her lips to Beca’s head, resting them their and holding the girl through her shakes. “Right here. Right here. Right here.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The break is deeper than Chloe thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: The bechloe divorce fic just crushed my heart. The feels. If you have the time can you please write a sequel where they try to make their marriage work and maybe how the other Bellas give their own thoughts to Chloe about how even the media saw that something was wrong with Beca and that even her own manager was rumored of being concerned for Beca's health. You are an amazing writer and every fic you make, may it be fluffy or dramatic just makes your readers so spoiled.

“I guess I just don’t understand, Chloe.” Aubrey’s voice stabbed through the phone, and Chloe thought she heard it echoing off the kitchen walls, but when she glanced at Beca on the couch, the other woman gave no indication of hearing it. “One second I’m texting you self-help novels to prep for the divorce settlement, and the next you’re making her dinner?” 

Chloe sighed, pulling out the mug of tea she’d stuck in the microwave. The cup was hot, jolting to her touch, but Chloe pressed into it. The feeling sent waves up the veins in her arms, stretching open the corners of her eyes, and made her clench her jaw. Still, it did  _something_. 

“There’s something wrong,” Chloe said, keeping her eyes on Beca. She was curled into the side of the couch, picking at the seam of the cushion. They left before Chloe’s lawyer came back into the room, with Chloe shouldering the weight of the smaller girl, who’s earlier sobs had receded into occasional shudders of breath. She had taken a taxi from the airport to get there on time, with no place to stay for the night, and when Chloe shuffled her into the back seat of her car, there was no protest. Just Beca offering an apology before shifting her seatbelt to help her lay down. Chloe opted for NPR over the Top 40s, because she knew how easily Beca would feel the vibrations against the seat - how they would press into her cheek, her hip, the bump of her ankles - and she couldn’t help but feel like they both weren’t ready for that pulse yet. Beca followed a few steps behind when Chloe walked up the steps into the apartment, waiting for her to turn on the lamps as if she didn’t know where anything was anymore. “You fixed the hole,” she had said, her dry and cracking voice startling Chloe enough to jump. She was pointing at the jagged thread woven into the edge of the couch cushion - stitches from the night Lilly slept over and they woke up to find a hole in the couch that they used to stuff post-it notes into when their schedules were particularly out of sync. Chloe had just nodded, letting the moment settle as they both outlined the thread in their stares. When her phone rang and Aubrey’s picture popped up, she offered to make a dinner, escaping. 

Beca hadn’t moved from the place she sat since the conversation with Aubrey started, and when Chloe shouted to ask whether she wanted the TV on, Beca took nearly a minute to respond with a “No. No thank you”. 

“Yeah, I know something’s wrong!” Aubrey sputtered, and Chloe saw her at her desk, her arms crossed while one hand flailed in frustrated irritation, “What’s wrong is your ex-wife – who, may I point out, would  _not_ be doing this for you… _did_  notdo this for you – is sitting in your living room right now while you are at her beck and call!” 

Chloe shook her head, removing her hands from the mug as they’d just reached a point of comfortable warmth, and reaching up into the liquor cabinet to pull out a bottle of whiskey. “Aubrey, I’m hanging up now” was all she said before putting the phone lightly on the counter, pouring for a measured three seconds, and heading into the living room. 

“Drink,” she instructed, nudging Beca up from where she was resting, despite the fact that the woman was acting like she was dead weight. She pressed both hands to the mug too, and Chloe wondered briefly if she was looking for that same jolt, that same break in dullness that Chloe so desperately needed too. She wondered if the lips that blew to cool down the drink could, in any way, be the thing that broke the greyness of her life again. Only, that was less of a “wondered” and more of a “knew”. 

“Are you going to talk?” she said after Beca took a few sips. From where she sat on the coffee table, their knees were touching. Beca was inspecting the lining of the mug, but Chloe watched her throat constrict - the only hint that Beca was thinking at all. Next to her, the other woman’s phone lit up. 67 notifications. “Becs, what the hell, have you even looked at this recently?” 

Beca only shook her head - a welcome mode of communication for an otherwise one-sided conversation. “They all wanted to know what was going on. How was I supposed to answer them, Chlo?” 

Chloe sighed when she picked up the phone, feeling like it weighed more than it did, like the worry of every text was enough to add a stone to it’s interior. Without hesitation, she plugged in Beca’s passcode (5115, their wedding day). The background was still Chloe, wrapped in a mountain of blankets and smiling goofily with her eyes closed. 

There were texts from her, and she startled herself with the blankness of them. “Meeting today” was the most recent, and then one a week earlier that read, “Check your email”. She scrolled through three more texts before she saw “I really miss you”, which was sent in a moment of weakness at 3am on a Wednesday, between a bottle of wine and papers that were not grading themselves. None of them were answered. 

Then, her manager, with a series of sixteen or seventeen texts just in the past day, all paragraphs long and scattered with phrases like “out of it”, “celebrity breakdown”, “damage control”, and a pile of terrifying can’ts, shoulds, and shouldn’ts that, Chloe imagined, would send Beca the Free Bird’s head spinning. 

Stacie followed with a text that actually went through earlier that day. It brought up a conversation at least twenty texts long that spanned the course of the entire year, filled completely in grey with no blue texts of contribution or reply. 

[ _Stacie (12:36am)]: Tried to stop by after the show, but you ran off pretty quickly._

_[Stacie (10:37am)]: I misssssss youuuuu bex. When you be in town next?_

_[Stacie (1:04am)]: Amy said she saw you last week. Reports aren’t good, sista. Gimme a call when you can?_

_[Stacie (4:56pm)]: Becs, I’m worried_

_[Stacie (4:57pm)]: I know you suck at this stuff, its fine_

_[Stacie (4:58pm)]: I’m, like, here if you need anything_

_[Stacie (8:01pm)]: Fuck i didn’t know it was tht bad_

_[Stacie (8:01pm)]: CR called with the news_

_[Stacie (8:02pm)]: i know a good lawyer_

_[Stacie (8:02pm)]: is that not the right thing to say?_

_[Stacie (12:22pm)]: Bree has us on high alert today, so i heard bout meeting. im gettin’ freaked a lil bit, tbh. if you don’t call soon, im gonna call chloe, okay?_

The texts with the other Bellas followed a similar trajectory: excited proclamations and invitations to visit, followed by questions of the silence on Beca’s end, and an offer of support around the day Chloe told CR that they were getting a divorce. 

_[Emily (1:34pm)]: Heyyyy captain, i know you’re super busy. i miss ya and wanted to see if we could skype sometime? these new bellas are ridiculous. i have stories to tell!_

_[Emily (1:35pm)]: dont wanna be weird. like. chloe’s invited to skype too. aca-obvs._

_[Emily (8:19pm)]: AHHHHHH WE WON, CAP! NATIONALS HERE WE COMEEEEE._

_[Emily (1:27am)]: I hve now larn3d how 2 ply my mom’s old bllas drinkin5 game. send helw._

_[Emily (5:32pm)]: i skyped chloe yesterday and she was, like, kinda weird. just a heads up, mrs. beale-mitchell._

_[Emily (7:34pm)]: so TOTALLY don’t want to bother you. i guess you’re busy. like. i know you’re busy. you’re you. um. i just wanted you to know im really sorry about everything…you know…that’s happening. Stace told me. i know it’s weird, i know i’m just, like, your little aca-child but…i just wanted to reach out. yunno. to make sure you’re okay. you seem…not okay. okay? don’t get angry at me._

_“_ Shit, Becs,” Chloe muttered as she read through them all, looking up to find that Beca had pressed the mug to her forward. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were pressed into a tight line, but Chloe saw a hum edging up on them, almost as if she was going to release a sigh of relief. She hated to do it, but she pulled the mug away, watching Beca’s eyes reluctantly open. She’d seen past Beca wake up - countless times she’d seen the grimace that came with facing the morning sun - but this was different. This was like disappointment. A buzz in the line around her pupils that seemed like it thought her still being here was in someway a failure of the mission she was on. 

Lightly, Chloe put the mug on the table, leaning forward so that her hands were on Beca’s knees. “Stop it,” she said, biting it out. The change in tone against her demeanor was enough to make Beca pull back momentarily, surprised. “I mean it. Because, Beca, you’ve been gone for a hell of a long time, and you’re here now. You’re here.” 

She took Beca hands in her own, pressing them to her chest. “So breathe. And once you get good at that, talk. To me. To them. To all the people who fucking  _deserve_ to hear your voice, okay?” 

Beca took a breathe, licking her lips before nodding. “I’m going to make dinner. And you are going to eat it with me. I want to hear about your day. That’s all.” 

Beca nodded again, and Chloe scooted closer. “You are here, Beca,” she said slowly, her eyes conveying the message as best as she could. “You are still fucking here. Okay?” 

With another nod, Chloe pressed her hands tighter. “I want to hear you tell me that you understand.” 

“I’m here,” she said, weakly, like she wasn’t convinced. “I’m here.” The recant was more deliberate, said on the exhale with a trembling lip that suggested that she might actually have felt it. “I can’t stop…apologizing…” she stuttered out, rolling her eyes to keep back the tears for the second time that day, “I don’t know…how…where…It’s like…the world was spinning too fast and I got thrown off. And once I was thrown off, I could find you, I couldn’t find any of them, but I couldn’t find you and…” 

Chloe lifted her hand to press it instead against Beca’s face, stopping it from shaking to side to side. “Shhh. I know,” she said simply, standing up just enough to press a kiss to Beca’s forehead. It was cold, sweaty, but it was like breathing for the first time in a while. It hurt her chest, a balloon demanding to be popped. “Come with me to the kitchen.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and join the REAL party @cheeky-geek-m0nkey.tumblr.com, yeah? there's a MILLION more fics there.


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner was silent, filled in with clanks and cracks of metal against porcelain plates, and Beca pushed the food around without ever actually taking a bit. She sipped the wine, though - gulped it, really - and when Chloe tried to break up the quiet, she’d nod or shrug to give some indication that she was still listening. Twice, Chloe noticed tears streaming down her face, the kind of crying that scratches trenches of saltwater down cheeks before you realize that they’re there. 

“How was your flight in?” Chloe asked as they were clearing up their plates. The faucet turned on, filling the room with a steady stream of sound. Beca was moving through the motions of their old life, picking up the condiments and putting them in their places in the fridge, like she was on an animatronic track with predetermined routes. 

“Long,” she said as she handed her wine glass to Chloe.  There was a nimbling at Chloe’s temples and a dryness in her mouth, this pulley system of knowing something needed to be said but not being able to conjure up enough notecards of sufficient conversation. 

“Where were you flying from?” she tried as the sponge in her hand scrubbed at the crumbs on the plate. 

“Nowhere.” 

When Beca handed the other plate to Chloe, her hands were cold. Chloe’s hands were burning, heated up by the water that was steaming over the sink and condensating on her cheeks. She wrapped them around Beca briefly, for a fraction of a second, and watched the way the other girl shivered out of the touch, an involuntary twitch that pushed away Chloe’s hand. But she noticed, there on the length of her ring finger, the way the skin was pink, indented with the inscription on their wedding ring, which said,  _I sure would like some sweet company._ Beca had moved sluggishly all day, drained and weighted by something that Chloe couldn’t quite identify, but in that moment, with a quick flutter to Chloe’s eyes after their touch, she turned around quickly, wringing her hands. 

“Becs,” Chloe tried, putting a wet hand on the other girl’s shoulder. Like a dog, Beca tilted her body into the touch, as if she was garnering energy simply from the contact. In a shuddering breath, she shrugged it off, and it almost looked like it was physically painful to break away. 

Chloe realized then, in that break of contact, how tired she was too. How weighted she was. And she wondered if, when Beca came into her lawyer’s office, she had the same feelings Chloe did about her. If Beca saw the familiarities in her mannerisms, in her face, in her demeanor, but all shifted somewhere off-balance, dulled and made heavier, weaker. Because she was sure, despite the cups of tea and a dinner cooked, that she was as far away as Beca was, and just as much in need. 

Aubrey was right, and when the shining light of that truth stabbed it’s way through Chloe’s temples it was like something was brewing terribly quickly inside of her. As much as it hurt to see Beca so  _not_ here, Chloe was just as much absent, and without anyone to hold her hand through it. Through the nights spent in bed alone - through the holiday dinners with questioning parents and aunts asking for grandchildren, through the Bellas reunions and the school choir concerts - she was alone. Because of Beca. She was deadened and greyed, because of Beca. Or because of what was, decidedly, some strange version of Not Beca. 

She wasn’t sure when the palm of her hand started stinging, but when she looked down, she noticed lines of blood dripping through the cracks in her palm and down the drain of the sink. The plate in her hands had broken under her grip, splintered into three even pieces with one pressing sharply into her palm. 

“God fucking damnit.” She dropped what she was holding, pressing instead onto the cut with the washcloth and turning around. 

“Wha-…shit,” Beca hardly reacted to the crash of the plate breaking, but when Chloe let out the curses, she turned, her eyes widening only slightly in panic. She reached out to help Chloe, but held back, hands hovering a few inches above Chloe’s shoulders. 

“No,” Chloe said, applying pressure to the wound. “No, get away.” 

The words seemed to break a spell of some sort, and Beca closed the distance between Chloe’s shoulders and her hands, squeezing them slightly before Chloe threw an arm out and shoved her away. “I told you to get away,” she said, grinding the words through her teeth. “You do  _not_ get to do this, Beca. You do  _not_ get to help me.” 

“Chlo, y-you’re bleeding, you could need help or–” The words were shaky, thrown out inside a tunnel of worry and confusion, but Chloe swatted them away. 

“Beca! God!”  As she motioned for Beca to move back, the other girl caught her hands, holding tightly onto her fingers to keep Chloe from moving them away. What began as a shove back turned into Chloe clutching at Beca’s collar, her knees suddenly giving out. With Beca shouldering the weight, they slid down the cabinets until they were on the floor, Chloe pressed against Beca’s chest. 

Beca seemed scared, unsure, and Chloe could feel, despite the fact that she thought she was entirely outside of herself in that moment, how weak the pillar she chose to lean on was. Like the foundation was steady, but the support was breaking, cracking, and Chloe’s weight was not unwanted but, at the very least, incapable of being held. She wasn’t sure when the fissures in that pillar started to stretch upwards - couldn’t tell if she, as the architect, as the builder, and as the stone-layer, was responsible for not noticing soon enough - but recognizing the presence of them only made her lean more.

She remembered, somewhere in the back of her mind, how Beca curled up against her while they watched some doctor drama, on one of the rare Sunday afternoons they had together as the soup was cooking on the stove. On the screen, in some dire situation, they cut a hole in the patient’s throat, sticking a tube in to help them breathe. It was how Chloe felt now - clogged and cold and like the more she breathed the less air she got. 

“Beca,” she said weakly - though still shouting, her nose pressed into Beca’s sternum. She smelled different. Like cigarettes and airplane air. “Fuck you.  _Fuck you_.” 

“What?” 

“You just left,” Chloe was sobbing through her words,  “You just - you let me build something and then you left. And you can’t  _do_ that, Beca! You can’t do that! So fuck you. It’s not,” she felt herself squeak through the words, “It’s not fair.” 

Beca let out a breath, let it flutter over Chloe’s hair. “Fuck you, too, then,” she said simply. Her voice was steadier than it had been all day, clear and cutting through the sound of the faucet running in the kitchen. Chloe thought, momentarily, if it was stronger because it had to hold her up.  “You left before I did. Or you wanted to. I was just…making it easier.” 

“Beca…what?” Chloe sat up, pushing herself off Beca while Beca still held onto her palm, applying pressure against the rag. The other woman focused her eyes on the wound as she talked. 

“You were pulling away, and, something was…different, and, I don’t know. There was no more singing in the shower, yunno? No more warmth. I just couldn’t find you anymore. So if I left, you did first. Way before any of this. And I didn’t know what to do because…because…I don’t know. When I lost you, I lost my music. And, we’d get on plane after plane but…I felt I wasn’t moving at all. Like I was watching myself through a two-way mirror and just for the life of me couldn’t  _do_ anything. At all. Except be cattled around and shoved into press shit and…I just - I don’t get how things can be so fast and so slow and so wrong and-” 

“You don’t leave, Beca,” Chloe interrupted, turning away from her and pulling her injured hand back. “When someone disappears, you don’t disappear too. You look for them. You  _find_ them. And you bring them back. I’ve been crawling around in the dark because you got scared when you couldn’t see me? Beca, you could’ve turned on the light and woken me up.” 

The sound of the faucet and the buzz of the fridge echoed through the silence, until Beca shifted onto her knees, pulling herself to stand and slamming the water off. She stood there, with her palms pressed against the edges of the sink and her head bowed. The extra droplets on faucet fell to the sink in deafeningly loud plunges. Chloe scooted on the floor, pressing her forehead to Beca’s knee and her clean hand to the back of her leg. 

“I’m sorry, Chlo,” Beca breathed, her inhalation shaky as she pulled her hands through her hair, “I’m really fucking dumb.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come on over to the REAL party @ flabbergasties.tumblr.com (where there's, like, a million more fics)


End file.
